My travels at Greenbelt!

I've just been to Greenbelt, a "Christian Arts Festival" of some sort or other. I just went, and this blog is a few thoughts off the back of it. I went with my liberal/anglo-catholic ish parents and my ickle sister.

To give a bit of background, Greenbelt is a seemingly formerly quite Schaefferian Christian festival. In accordance with the Schaefferian school of thought (or at least how it came to be in England, as I understand it - I wasn't alive in the 70's!), it emphasises Christian political action and a Christian approach to, and engagement with, the arts. It has, however, grown away from Schaeffer in the fact that it is no longer exclusively evangelical, and I would be very surprised to find a figure as conservative as Schaeffer himself teaching there.

It has, in fact, grown liberal to the point where there was a session arguing (very badly) that it doesn't really matter whether God exists for Christianity! There were evangelical teachers there, too - though none so conservative as someone like Schaeffer, or even - to my knowledge - someone as conservative as I (and I don't think I'm absurdly conservative theologically - though some may differ).

I mostly attended things related to third world poverty/climate change, since that's where I judged I'd learn most from the festival. For that reason, I very much doubt I have a proper hold on what the theology of the event was like overall.

Here were some thoughts I wanted to record for posterity, or rather think through enough to post some comments.

1) I thought a bit about truth/unity/grace/love and how they all fit together. It seems to me that there aren't too many people doing serious thought on this kind of thing. Most people seem to have a fairly unanalysed assumption either that we should be united with people (without really thinking through much the biblical importance of truth), or that we should not be united with people who differ with us on certain issues (without really thinking through the biblical importance of unity). The former seem to be much more common in popular circles (though less so among clergy etc) - and (probably because they're rarer), the latter seem to me to be more thought out (although sadly not so much as I would like.)

I think I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that much disagreement itself about organisational unity really actually undermines unity. (In saying that, I'm not saying that we don't need to have a debate, merely that the current way it is happening is harmful). In the New Testament, unity is primarily about unity of loving relationship. It seems that in much modern church circles, people who tend to want more organisational unity mostly do so in an arrogant, patronising, judgemental, and sometimes even downright offensive way (normally behind the backs of those who they're talking about) - thereby undermining any relationship of love.

Similarly, those who tend to want less organisational unity mostly talk in a very similar way about the other side (although less so, in my experience - which may well just simply be the outworking of being a minority today). I think unity of loving relationship is much much more valuable than closer bonds between organisations (which can only be of fairly insignificant importance) - and indeed is always of certain value, whereas organisational unity is more complex - and thus I would encourage my readers to evaluate their own heart and their own way of treating other people.

At the same time, I thought more about the fact that the situation is quite complex, and I would love to write a book on all the ins and outs of it! One thing I am increasingly confident of, though - the UCCF solution (ie the DB etc) to dealing with difficult theologies is the right one for CU's! They are definitely not the environment for difficult decisions like this to be resolved. CU's have both a limited remit, and leaders who are generally too young to be wise about these situations. It is not their responsibility to unite the church, and they don't have the wisdom to deal with false teaching, even in errors of other Christians (which the Bible actually takes very seriously - e.g. 1 Cor 3:13-15).

I hope I will come to some conclusions, and write a book on these issues one day (assuming someone good doesn't beat me to it!) For now, though, I would really urge readers of my blog to think seriously about these kinds of issues if they are ever going to be in any particular position to decide about them - and to really look at their bible, and not just the teaching they automatically side with (wherever on the 'spectrum' they are). Above all, I would ask my readers to seek to love those who disagree with them - and to do so without judging them for disagreeing with them. (But really, I suppose, I'm probably as guilty as anyone there, just blind to my own flaws. I hope my comments above are motivated by more than a judgemental spirit - and indeed would not post them if I thought that was all they were - but .)

2) John Smith is an AWESOME speaker! :) He was some aussie bloke who spoke on two things that I listened to - the idea of mcdonalisation of worship, and the environment. In reality, the first one - which I was expecting might be quite a dry conservative approach to worship - was about the idea that the forms should be modern, but that the church is worryingly close to making the substance like the modern world (he specifically talked about market ideology, though it goes for other things as well I think) as well as the form! Thought provoking, though I don't think he got nearly as nitty-gritty as I felt I would have liked.

He also spoke on Environmentalism and the trinity. I didn't care so much for this one, because I didn't quite get his gelling of the two together. He taught a good old doctrine of the social trinity, although there was little new there for me to chew on - but I'll cope, and it'd have been great for those who haven't spent a year obsessed with the ideas he was talking about. His envoromentalist teaching wasn't *great*, either.

3) I thought a bit about the left-wing stance of the festival as a whole. For those of you who don't know, I'm a member of the labour party, and am generally committed to supporting centre-left causes. I'm particularly committed to two of the key causes they were really pushing (reducing/ending third world poverty, and environmental issues.)

HOWEVER, I wasn't mad keen on the specific way that they were doing this. They seemed to not have much basis in theology or the gospel. I couldn't see much difference between this kind of protest, and the kind that could be achieved by a non-Christian.

I guess that serves as a challenge to many of us who are rightly committed to politics or poltical causes - to remember that we should be doing so out of a love of the God of Jesus Christ, and therefore . I know it served as a challenge to ME to try to further think through my approach to the poor etc in the light of Christian Truth.

(For what it's worth, Tim Chester is great on much of this - we had him talk on social action etc at Relay 2 and I loved him.

I really must read his Good News to the Poor and his Justice, Mercy, and Humility on that kind of thing.)

4) On a much less thoughtful note, I bumped into (name) a few times. Reminded me that she does seem like a really lovely person - genuinely warm and an interesting person, who cares a lot about the most important issues in the world. That's not particularly thoughtful, but I thought it might be a nice comment to mention in this note.

However, she did WALK OUT of a seminar on the poor in the third world. Tut tut tut (name), do you not care about poor people?

;P

5) Morna Hooker (a quite famous bible scholar) was good on the gospels. Some parts I disagreed with - particularly her minimising the historicity of many of the events - but she was very good on many elements, and consistently thought provoking (even where I don't agree, or don't think I agree). She was teaching on the beginnings of the gospels. First day she spoke on Mark, and mentioned, among other things, that is is basically a passion narrative with an extended introduction.....

6) .... I was sad to hear the next day a speaker state repetitively that the gospels are not passion narratives with extended introductions! I wanted to ask, "Which gospels are you reading?" The person was thinking this based upon the fact that we are supposed to imitate Christ, and (I suspect, from knowledge of related ideas, although I don't think she said this) an emphasis on the incarnation. The thing is, our imitation of Christ is supposed to be focused around the Christ of the Cross - the Cross should be central to our view of the Jesus that we imitate, hence Paul is always talking about morality connected to the cross (husbands, love your wives like Christ died for the church... be as humble as the Christ who came to earth to die... etc etc).

Very little of the gospels are about the things that we can imitate - aside from the passion, loads of it is taken up with healings (which we can't do), and teachings (which doesn't require an incarnation, just any wise person). Furthermore, the main argument in favour of the incarnation, contra Arius, etc, was "that which was not assumed cannot be redeemed" - that is, incarnation is logically dependent upon redemption, and therefore upon the cross. So of course there is value in the - but the speaker seemed to suggest (though I know not whether this was her intention) that this is *independent* of Him being the Christ of the Cross - which it is not.

As Martin Luther said, "The Cross is our Theology!"

7) Why are people so rude about politicians? One thing that particularly struck me was that thenever anyone said anything negative about a politician that was strongly worded, people would clap and cheer and generally make a lot of supportive noise. They wouldn't do the same if they said something positive that was equally strongly worded.

I was particularly shocked at this during a talk by Douglas Alexander (cabinet minister in charge of international development) - fine, support your causes, but why be so nasty? Cabinet Ministers have feelings, too. And they've (in this guys case, at least) also devoted their lives to understanding and promoting these kinds of causes that members of the public generally only support by condemning from their armchairs. (That's not to say I agree with labour policy on all issues by any means at all, but it is to say that I don't feel the need to be so rude about it, and to make an attempt to be balanced and not just whinge.)

I may well post some additional thoughts at a later date, but right now I have things to do, people to see!